Top Notch | Fabindia group head Dipali Patwa on how the company is India's biggest artisanal brand

Top Notch | Fabindia group head Dipali Patwa on how the company is India's biggest artisanal brand

Jan 15, 2023 - 07:30
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Top Notch | Fabindia group head Dipali Patwa on how the company is India's biggest artisanal brand

FOR most people, joining a new company weeks before the pandemic hit would have been a professional nightmare. But for Dipali Patwa – Group Head, Brand and Communications of Fabindia – it was a silver lining. “I joined Fabindia in January 2020, and moved to India from New York in February that year. But I was on the last flight out of New Delhi in March 2020, to get back home to New York as the country was shutting down,” she says, over a late night call from New York. “But honestly, Fabindia was trying to get digital going. The lockdown ensured that all the projects I wanted to get started got started. We didn’t have a choice but to go digital. So I’ll take the positives, thank you.”

This sunny-side-up demeanour has held Patwa, 50, in good stead. She was soon diagnosed with breast cancer, something she has been fighting all of the last year. “Two more sessions, and I’ll be back in India. I am in remission and all geared up,” she smiles.

Patwa says the time away as well as the lockdowns have allowed the management to think out of the box. “It is a legacy brand after all,” she says. And being over six decades old, they know how to keep their boat afloat.

Fabindia was founded by an American John Bissel who came to India on a Ford Foundation mission. It started out of his bedroom, exporting home furnishings to the USA, and got into retail in India only in 1976. It is now fronted by his son William Nanda Bissel and has over 300 stores across India as well as 14 internationally.

It is India’s most successful artisanal brand. I say this as it still is a privately owned company that makes everyday contemporary products – apparel, decor, tableware, skincare – using traditional crafts and hand-based processes from over a century ago. Most of all, Fabindia is affordable, and everyone from a middle-class home to an affluent home, will have at least something from here. It’s exciting to note that Fabindia currently supports over 50,000 artisans directly.

This is Patwa’s second stint with Fabindia. She worked with them 25 years ago as their first creative director. “There was no design team or a product development person. I was to have direct links with artisans. I would spend four-five months of the year working with artisans outside Delhi – an Afghan community making rugs for example – and offer them a little design intervention. In Salem, Tamil Nadu, they would make the best mulmul. I’d sleep on their floors and eat their food, often get right into the pit loom with them,” she speaks with nostalgia. “No school can teach you this. These are real people, this is the culture of their community. I needed to make friends with them in order to bring out their best work. This was my Masters in impact-led design,” she laughs.

When she would return to work for brands like Martha Stewart, she would be able to explain why two of their cotton rubbed place mats were not exactly the same. “There is no electricity. They have no light after 4pm. You need to understand how communities across the world live. This is really what the west understands as organic or sustainable. In India, this is just how we live,” she explains. “Now when someone in the West sets ESG standards, I just have a wry smile.”

I completely love her designation, I tell her. It’s very telling of how important the idea of community is to the company. “It’s so interesting that you noticed it. This is what story-telling really is. I mean, CMA is so clinical, right? For us, community is the consumer, the vendors and our team. William came up with it and it speaks a great deal of his vision,” she says.
Patwa credits her penchant for craft to her growing up years in Ahmedabad. “I mean it has the influence of CEPT, NID and IIM, so it’s a culturally rich town. My mother is an OB/GYN but did Bharat Natyam with Mallika Sarabhai. My father is an orthopedic surgeon but pains every Sunday. You grow up with the arts,” she smiles.

Patwa has declined to comment on Fabindia’s upcoming IPO, something all fashion businesses in India are waiting to see unfold. She’s also clever enough to say Fabindia’s losses of 2021, and a slightly better 2022, are mere hiccups. “The pandemic may have put a pause on our business but we have been very busy. We took the opportunity to analyse what was needed for the next decade. We’ve put so many things into action – we launched Fab Essentials in the middle of the pandemic. We launched a GenZ brand called Fab New, and New India, an ethnic version of Fab New. We redid our logo for Fab Home. We are launching a 1800 service, a white glove deliveries service and a pilot concierge at the Vasant Kunj store,” she rattles off breathlessly, adding she keeps an eye on young brands like Summer House, Khara Kapas and Okhai constantly.

Patwa insists Fabindia is prepared for a new India, which will soon have most of its population under 35 years of age. “We understood what ‘vocal for local’ was very early on. It will hold us in good stead.”

Namrata Zakaria is a seasoned writer and editor, and a chronicler of social and cultural trends. Her first book, on late fashion designer Wendell Rodricks’ Moda Goa museum, is due to be published shortly. Zakaria is especially known for her insider’s take on fashion, luxury and social entrepreneurship in India. Her writing is appreciated for shaping opinions, busting myths, making reputations and sometimes breaking the odd career. Zakaria is also involved in putting together philanthropic efforts in the field of economic and environmental sustainability.

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